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MetaX?
- Thread starter kjr39
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Lostify works, if you want to input all of your tags yourself. I dont, I liked Metax, where you simply input the name and it pulls all the tag info. I havent tried subler. I did try vidalin, and was impressed however it cant find alot of older movies and tv shows. I simply use metax in parallels now and have no issues. They update metax in windows quite often..
The Windows version of MetaX works fine for me on m4v's encoded by HandBrake. The Mac version is no longer able to do the tag lookups from Amazon or Tag Monkey. So I now use the Windows version on my Macbook Pro running a Windows virtual machine.
I still use MetaX if I'm tagging movies/tv show from prior to 2009 as most of that stuff can still be looked up through Tag Chimp. Vidalin is very staightforward, has a decent lookup feature but basically only tags info that would appear on the 
TV (no cnID if you need that). I just started using Subler as it's useful for tagging HD/SD versions of the same movie with cnID and it does have lookup in Tag Chimp. Not much as far as instructions/documentation so I've had to rely on a little trial and error. Also, neither Vidalin or Subler let you do more than one item at time--another nice feature in MetaX.
TV (no cnID if you need that). I just started using Subler as it's useful for tagging HD/SD versions of the same movie with cnID and it does have lookup in Tag Chimp. Not much as far as instructions/documentation so I've had to rely on a little trial and error. Also, neither Vidalin or Subler let you do more than one item at time--another nice feature in MetaX.
I recently switched from MetaX to Subler. Didn't like it at first, but once I got it figured out it's been awesome!
For what it's worth, my system involves downloading my regular shows on a schedule and getting them converted and tagged for AppleTV use. Since it's regular shows each day, I've created a small video file (5mb or so) as the default for each show. On each file, I've entered the cover art, show name, season, actors, rating, etc and left the track/episode number, episode name and description blank.
Subler allows you to import metadata from other files so when the shows are converted, I'll load the metadata from the appropriate 5mb video file, then just have to add in the episode name, number and description rather than re-tagging everything each time.
I used to use Lostify before I switched to MetaX and don't have much bad to say about it, though I think I'll be sticking with Subler.
For what it's worth, my system involves downloading my regular shows on a schedule and getting them converted and tagged for AppleTV use. Since it's regular shows each day, I've created a small video file (5mb or so) as the default for each show. On each file, I've entered the cover art, show name, season, actors, rating, etc and left the track/episode number, episode name and description blank.
Subler allows you to import metadata from other files so when the shows are converted, I'll load the metadata from the appropriate 5mb video file, then just have to add in the episode name, number and description rather than re-tagging everything each time.
I used to use Lostify before I switched to MetaX and don't have much bad to say about it, though I think I'll be sticking with Subler.
The problem I have with MetaX is that I'll use it to tag some videos, then try to change something, but MetaX will not open the video back up. This only happens to a few videos, but its very annoying.
I find that Subler writes tags a 100 times faster than MetaX. Since the look-up feature on the Mac version of MetaX went bye-bye, I've been using Subler because it's just as quick to copy and paste in either app, but Subler writes in a second what takes MetaX minutes (particularly with HD files).
Also, MetaX would sometimes miss tags, particularly genre and rating, and does not (afaik) let you add a cnID or HD tag.
It should probably be noted that MetaX is doing the equivalent of a "Save + Optimize" in Subler, which requires the entire file to be rewritten. That said, Subler still seems faster when comparing tagging times between the two packages.
Here's how the author describes the feature. Personally, I always run my encodes through the process as I *THINK* I've seen a little better streaming performance to my AppleTVs, but I have no way of supporting this.
There's also iFlicks, which costs $$, and the nice Automator service macjedi came up with (uses tmdb).
As a side request, does anyone know if there's a tool which can tag for iTunes AND export a XBMC .nfo XML file? That would be killer and kill two birds with one stone!
As a side request, does anyone know if there's a tool which can tag for iTunes AND export a XBMC .nfo XML file? That would be killer and kill two birds with one stone!
I quit using MetaX when it starting outputting all black video files every now and again (like 1 in 5 or 10 times I would use it). I have been just naming the files by hand and dragging an image of the movie poster from a Google image search into my library. It takes about as much of my time as a MetaX search and pick, doesn't have the looong copy time, but misses out on all the "extra" info.
Might try some of the suggestions in this thread, though. Any of them work within iTunes to search out data that's missing from files in your library?
Might try some of the suggestions in this thread, though. Any of them work within iTunes to search out data that's missing from files in your library?
iFlicks installs a script in iTunes so you can run it on your existing library. Pretty easy to use and hasn't missed a beat for me.
Not in my experiences. Works fine across the entire Apple ecosystem without optimizing.
I use Identify 2, have from the start, but if i was starting in the middle of my collection i would have went with iFliks just because of this script.
actually since i like identify so well now i would say that i would have bought both programs and just used iFlicks on my existing library and then Identify 2 on the new stuff.
Another plug for identify. I've used several different taggers including metax and subler but identify has a good mix of features. When I'm encoding a TV season and name the files right then I usually don't have to do anything but load and scan in identify. So much nicer.
Yeah...it all comes down to the naming of the files for most programs. As long as I have something similar to "TV Show Name - S00E00 ........." anything else can be on the file name post episode number, and iFlicks has zero problems also. Mind you, for movies, I must say punctuation is critical!! Miss an apostrophe and often it cant find the movie.
Identify > Subler > MetaX
Yep, Identify 2 is the best IMHO.
I've tried MetaX (too slow), and Subler (too slow and causes corruption on AppleTV2 so you have to perform a lengthy optomize).
It's super fast. The only downside is that it's $10. But sometimes free apps don't have the quality that paid apps have.
Yep, Identify 2 is the best IMHO.
I've tried MetaX (too slow), and Subler (too slow and causes corruption on AppleTV2 so you have to perform a lengthy optomize).
It's super fast. The only downside is that it's $10. But sometimes free apps don't have the quality that paid apps have.
there's a free version on Macupdate, although donation asked fir of iDentify2. It's same version on Mac App store. To me I've paid for it as very little cost and great support and updates
Subler is as fast as iDentify2, if you just open your mp4 and add the tags. If you are remuxing it to a new file, well, it takes take to copy all the data.